4 Dimms on z97?

[Guest]

Hi, I am planning to get more ram on my system. It's a core i7 4790k and a gigabyte ga z97x ud5h motherboard. I have 2x4gb sticks currently and will the motherboard support 2 more 4gb sticks. I heard that z97 does not support quad channel and I don't know what that means. There isn't really a clear answer to me. Thanks

[GhostWindGamer]

It supports it you will be fine

[Godlygamer23]

The motherboard is dual channel. What this means for you is that two slots are one channel while the other two slots are another channel. Obviously the slots would work if they put them on the board.

[Dicoray]

There is barely any performance difference, you will be fine

[Sandvich]

Dual and Quad channel is bandwith for memory you are fine with dual channel.

[Glenwing]

Dual channel memory means the CPU has two memory controllers on it. It effectively doubles the memory bandwidth because it can do two memory operations per cycle instead of one. You need at least two RAM modules to operate in dual channel mode, one connected to each memory controller. Quad channel means four memory controllers, and you need at least four modules to operate in quad channel mode (although CPUs can still operate in lower configurations if you don't have enough RAM sticks, dual/quad is just the maximum).

In reality however memory bandwidth is very rarely the limiting factor on anything, and it's very rare to see a performance change of any kind just from extra memory bandwidth.

Typically a DDR3 memory controller can be wired to up to two RAM slots, so dual channel = 4 slots (one pair wired to each controller) and quad channel = eight slots.

By the way, don't be fooled by memory kits labeled as "dual channel kits" or "quad channel kits" as if it is a different kind of memory. There is no such thing. All memory is just memory, and any modules can be run in dual or quad channel mode, they aren't specifically designed for one configuration or the other and you don't need any special kind of RAM for this kind of thing.